Liszt: erotic lyricism and transcending a reputation

I have done many interviews so far this year in which I've spoken about Liszt. Despite the fact that he gave up playing paid, public recitals in his mid-30s and that today his reputation as a composer is firmly based on a serious output of groundbreaking works, the idea still remains that he was merely a show-off, a serial seducer of women, a superficial charlatan. Fast and loud on stage, fast and loose off stage. There comes a point when all we can do is to keep denying the charges and hope that a new, more accurate reputation will eventually supplant the old one. It is gradually happening.Another Hungarian pianist, Georges Cziffra, is someone similarly tainted with a one-sided reputation for unthinking virtuosity. The clip above in a fascinating example of him teasing and squeezing every last drop of erotic lyricism out of one of Liszt more brilliant Transcendental Etudes. It will not be to everyone's taste, but it not only proves that Cziffra was about much more than speed, it also suggests that even the most acrobatic works of Liszt have elements of drama and passion inside them which can be missed by a jet-engine modern approach. Note too the piano – a Gaveau. A poignant reminder of a era when there were many choices of instruments, each with a different sound-world and different actions encouraging different approaches to the music being performed.